For the love of entertainment

My Book Bucket List: Things to Read Before You Die

Last year, I sat down and collected a list of classics I haven’t read as well as some of the most critically acclaimed novels of the 20th century. It started as a curiosity but ended up a sort of bucket list. Not a project for me to work on right now, but something to keep an eye on and update as I make progress over time. If I were going to make an actual project out of this I would keep the list much shorter. I read one and a half of these in December, which made me think about putting the list up here. So without further ado, these are the books I’m hoping to read someday. If you have opinions or preferences, I would love to hear them.

Notes: Obviously, I’m not including books that I’ve already read, so you won’t see To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Animal Farm, Pride and Prejudice, anything by E.M. Forster or Kurt Vonnegut, and others. As I go through I will update this list. Red will indicate a book I partially read, and blue a completed book. I also reserve rights to add and subtract from this list as I see fit.

In alphabetical order by author:

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Doug Adams (1979)

A Death in the Family, James Agee (1957)

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (1869)

Eva Luna, Isabel Allenda (1987)

The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende (1982)

Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis (1954)

Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson (1919)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou (1969)

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood (2000)

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (2003)

Emma, Jane Austen (1815)

Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin (1953)

The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow (1953)

Herzog, Saul Bellow (1964)

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty (1971)

The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles (1949)

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953)

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (1847)

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown (1970)

The Good Earth, Pearl Buck (1931)

Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs (1959)

True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey (2000)

Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (1927)

My Ántonia, Willa Cather (1918)

Verdict: The writing feels surprisingly fresh for a 100-year-old book, but I never felt an emotional connection. Grade: B+

O Pioneers!, Willa Cather (1913)

Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (1615)

The Seagull, Anton Chekhov (1895)

The Awakening, Kate Chopin (1899)

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (1899)

Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (1899)

Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat (1994)

Bleak House, Charles Dickens (1853)

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (1850)

Deliverance, James Dickey (1970)

Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion (1970)

Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion (1968)

I read segments of this in high school English but want to read the whole thing.